


A Spark Of Shadow

by Teleportation_Magic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22428334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teleportation_Magic/pseuds/Teleportation_Magic
Summary: Wanda knows dark, knows light, and she is stronger than them both. And in the RAFT it blooms.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Clint Barton
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	A Spark Of Shadow

When Wanda was ten, she learned to fear the dark.

She hadn’t before. Before, the dark had been nice. It was Mama and Papa pressed into her back, Pietro’s warm arm on hers. It’d been curling up in front of the television, trading whispers about the people in the show. It had been a million things that were gone, suddenly, when Wanda and Pietro had ducked under the bed and held onto each other, praying for life, trying not to smell the blood in the air.

It’d taken years for Wanda to be able to sit in the dark again – she was always so scared. Scared that when she closed her eyes that she would be back there, head tucked into her chest, except this time Pietro would have perished with Mama and Papa. She had woken up many time after, hands over her mouth and she tried to stifle screams as she moved from a sleeping nightmare to a waking one. Her brother’s hand over her back had been one of the few things that woke her up, so that when he flew into frights (though he was never one to admit them) she could bring him back down. Every now and then they'd get a blow at the hands of the other, and they always laughed at that after they were calm, again.

When Wanda is nineteen, she learns to fear the light.

It is not light as she knows it, bright sun on her skin with Clint’s children near her back. It is not the yellow tinged colour of the compound when she had trained with Natasha. It is not even the flickering light of the concrete cages SHEILD had held them in, when she had nothing but she did have her brother and then her red.

The light is nothing at first. It is better, for her at least, to not have the dark, because she knows she cannot move and if she closes her eyes and if she dreams she might scream and then the things around her neck would – She is happy there is no dark. But then, hours pass. Time bends, not long after, and Wanda can’t tell when is when and the light changes.

It feels like it wishes to flay her alive and take what she has left. This light in never ceasing, bright, viscerally violating in a way that is difficult to describe. She cannot sleep, because it bears down on her whenever she closes her eyes. She cannot feel it on her skin because the jacket they put her in when her eyes had closed wrapped every limb, and the collar on her neck meant she couldn’t move.

She spends days (Wanda thinks), limbs suspended, unmoving. But the boredom is unceasing and the yearning is not something she can suppress. She tries, oh does she, but she can’t, she knows she doesn’t deserve to be here, and she knows she can’t – but Wanda has never been one to lay back and accept, not really.

She fears the light, but she loves life more. And that is a realization that shakes her to her core after days of staring at a wall and having nothing to do but think and listen. She tries closing her eyes, she really does, but time after time she cannot move to sleep. The light is unbearable. When she does finally jolt into consciousness it is because Clint is screaming for her to wake up as the guards face twists into a furious one, and she wonders what time it is. She never wanted a window so bad.

Clint reminds her of Pietro – when last time she had sat curled up against the ground, he had been the one to whisper stories to her and she’d sing him poems back. And even though she has no voice, Clint still tells her stories, tales that wash over her like waves on a beach, lulling her into some sense of security despite the cold metal around her throat. When the only movement she had was slipping here tongue across her teeth, something in her had screamed and screamed and _screamed_ and Wanda tucks that in amid the yearning – it boils under her skin, and it is a dangerous anger and Wanda had done so much with this kind of anger, great things, terrible things.

Time never works linearly, here. The time between meals was not constant – did not feel constant, in the very least. Wanda remembered Clint’s screaming when Stark visited, and she wonders if that too runs on some sort of schedule. It seemed like it might – Stark had always been a man prone to self destruction.

The guards don’t see anything – they don’t bother to check, really. It is not easy to move her fingers, but she can, slowly. Her magic had always worked better with quick movement, and it takes practice to be able to clear out a little space under the padding, but for now slowly is easiest, is the way of least resistance. The blurring of the edge of her mind helped, she thinks. It makes what is and what can be line up more easily – it is like a dream, where she can simply will things to be and the are. But when she shreds the slightest bit of room it is relief to twitch her fingers, to have easy movement that is not her tongue. She does not let so much as a muscle on her face twitch – Natasha had taught her this and she used it, used it as much as she could because If the guards checked she didn’t know what would happen, how it could be worse, but she knows it would be. She think she would stay slack jawed anyways – moving her jaw would demand effort out of her and she has none left spare scraps that she cannot give up, not just yet.

It is within two breathes she decides to escape and within the third she does. With a flick of her fingers the jacket crumbles and then the collar crumbles and she staggers to her feet, legs so stiff. Her limbs crumple the first time she crawls to her feet, and she braces against the wall the next time she rises. With another flick of her fingers the bars fly into the opposite wall and embed themselves in it.

She breathes.

And in the next few moments, she cannot tell if it is dream or real – everything she wants happens, just as soon as she wills it. The glass around Clint and Sam and the other man crumble, before disintegrating into a fine powder. Clint gives her a smile and she returns it, dreamy and sleepy and she knows when they are out she will be able to put her head down and rest. She throws an arm around the other man and they lean on each other, hoping not to fall.

Clint takes point. He guides, she follows. He and Sam are the only alert ones of the four of them, Wanda drowning, somehow. She doesn’t know how, but they eventually board a plane and she slumps next to a window and when the missile comes she is the one who shreds it to pieces. It barely taks a wave of her hand - like this, she thinks she could do anything. She wants to rest.

It is daytime. The sun is bright and Wanda stumbles under the light but fifteen minutes into the ride Clint stands from the cockpit and Sam slides into a seat and he takes her to a dark room and there is a blanket and a pillow and he spreads them out for her.

“Thank you.” She murmurs, wrapping herself up. There is no bed, so she sleeps on the floor. “Stay?”

Because against all logic the dark still makes a thrill of fear run through her, even after years and years and she knows Clint would be right to go because she is far to old to be afraid of the dark. But he doesn’t, and he presses a quiet word and a kiss to her forehead before sitting on a nearby chair, and for the first time in some time Wanda can rest.

**Author's Note:**

> This is in no way inspired by my own experiences with sleep deprivation. Of course it isn't.


End file.
